5* TRAVELS IN UPPER 



Ibrahim the K'laschef^ who was overseer of the ga- 

 ihering in of the taxes due from the caravans of 

 Nubia. This was one of the best men in the 

 world. 



The latter lent me his horses for the purjose of 

 visiting those mountains which form at the ba* k of 

 SiQut, an amphitheatre of rocks and of sterility, 

 the foot of which is a full quarter of a league from 

 the city. The other side of this mountain which 

 looks towards the Nile, appeared at a distance, as 

 if it were pierced into holes of different forms. 

 These are openings into excavations hewn out in 

 the rock, which is calcareous. Some of these en- 

 trances are in the form of an arch, others in that 

 of an oblong square. They are of a fine work- 

 manship, and crowded with symbolical figures, 

 among which you may observe, without as well as 

 within, that of a man of the natural size, with one 

 hand leaning on a stick. The greater part of these 

 cavities form very spacious halls, and nearly thirty 

 feet in height. The interior of some of them is 

 covered with hieroglyphical figures and characters, 

 which are almost totally effaced by the hand of 

 time. The remains of painting may be still distin- 

 guished on the ceilings, and in the cavities of the 

 ^gures. These halls receive the light through air- 

 holes formed in the rock ; they have also in them 

 deep wells hollowed in a square form ; it is impos- 

 sible 



